Back when I was in school being a gamer was frowned upon. So pretty much the majority of people (myself included) were closet gamers. It wasn't so bad because Pokemon came out to North America, and started to open up the gaming world. Having that trade system meant you had to go and talk to people.
I feel like my generation was the start of the world opening up to video games. Most of my friends played games. Being a "closet gamer" simply means we didn't talk about games at school. I know, I know. I had it a lot better then the true closets gamers who didn't have anyone to talk you. I like that term, because of the simply reason that we didn't talk about games in the open.
Crazy thing happened though. In about 5 years time the world switched, and all of a sudden it was "cool" to be a gamer. The kids now talk about games all the time. In fact if you don't play games you can't have a conversation with them. My friend an I went to this class to teach. Everyone was playing a game, and no one was interacting with each other. Once we started all the kids put their games away, and listened (they were really good kids). At the end we tried to talk to them. My friend (not a gamer) got ignored, but I became the cool one. It was awkwardly amazing!
The reason why I say this is because we are coming into a generation we're everyone plays video games. It is the cool thing to do. In fact some of my friends are so into gaming that they watch people play games. Like it's so foreign to me that it's okay to play games, but to watch people play games!? So I asked these friends of mine how much do they watch on average.
"Mmm... About 3-4 hours" my friend said. I couldn't believe it. 3-4 hours a week was insane, or so I thought. He continued "a day"... 3-4 hours a day they spend watching people play games... 3-4 hours! That's on top of work, on top of hanging out with friends, on top of playing the games themselves...
A game that I loved to play was DOTA 2. They first year they held a huge tournament. The winners of that tournament won 1 million dollars. They had to split it as they had 5 people on the team, but still 1 million dollars to play a game. One of the teammates was only 15 years old. There are other games that hold these tournaments where people make good money from. It's a trend that will only get bigger, and bigger.
I know it sounds unreasonable, and crazy, but I believe the gaming industry is going to over take the sports industry. Think about it. There was once a time where soccer was just a game. One day some people practiced really hard. Had many people say "you wont get anywhere in life if you just play soccer!" kept at it to prove the people wrong. Now sports players get paid huge money. Countries go crazy over who's team is better. It's just a matter of time where video games get to the same point.
When VR gets developed even more so then it is now. Our sports games may not even exist.
Tell me what you think. Will games over come sports? Should we tell our kids to practice gaming non stop?
Comment below.